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UK poverty line

October 6th, 2008 by admin | Filed under Daily News, Recession.

The campaign to end child poverty claims that 5.5m children are living close to or beneath the child poverty line in the UK. The campaign to end child poverty staged a rally in London on October 4th to highlight the growing number of children that have slipped into poverty in the last 2 years. Today, almost one in 3 children lives in poverty in the UK. The government’s target was to end child poverty by 2020, a goal which, considering the pressing economic times we live in looks more like a fantasy that an achievable goal.

In each of the last 2 years, 100,000 more children have slipped below the poverty line. Of the 13.2m children in the UK, 5.6m are not in low income or impoverished families.

The campaign organisers, a coalition of more than 120 UK organisations including Barnardos, UNICEF and the NSPCC marched on Trafalgar square to bring the plight of families and entire communities to the attention of the government. In 174 out of 646 parliamentary constituencies, the majority of children live below the poverty line. Campaign director, Hilary Fisher called the figures “absolutely shocking”.

She said: “There are currently 3,900,000 children in the UK that are classed as actually living in poverty, which impacts on every aspect of a child’s life.

“A child in poverty is 10 times more likely to die in infancy, and five times more likely to die in an accident.

“Adults who lived in poverty as a child are 50 times more likely to develop a restrictive illness such diabetes or bronchitis.”

Ms Fisher said some families could not afford school uniforms, and chose schools for their children based on uniform cost – which was “not acceptable”.

She said: “The government has lifted 600,000 children out of poverty, but 100,000 have gone back for each of the last two years.

“If the government does not allocate £3bn in tax credits and benefits in the next budget, then their plans to reduce child poverty will fail.”

The government’s measures to life working families out of child poverty are not working. A single-wage couple with 2 children would stop getting working tax credit when they earn over £18,500 a year, leaving them just above the poverty line.

Some of the worst affected areas are in Glasgow Ballieston, Central Easterhouse and North Barlarnack where an estimate 98% of children are in families which are in poverty or which are struggling to get by.

The constituencies which are least likely to have child poverty are in Buckingham and Sheffield Halam, which each have 17% of children living below the poverty line.

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